F-1** Cheetah - 25t, TRO3025
Originally posted 11 May 2005. All proposed fan-variants should be posted in the corresponding "FotW Workshop" thread. Supposedly a Star League design which was co-opted by the Free Worlds League at the outset of the Succession Wars, the
Cheetah actually supplanted the
Trident in SLDF service as the Navy’s preferred carrier-based interceptor, based partly (or so I gather) on its superior armour strength. (This despite the
Trident wearing a skin of ferro-aluminium! :o) Originally intended as a fast reconnaissance platform, the
Cheetah is relatively thin-skinned and only moderately armed, counting on its fleetness of foot to carry it through the fire unscorched - not without reason, as only the
Swift was faster before the arrival of Kerensky’s Mobs. :D
At twenty-five tons, the F-10
Cheetah gives exactly half its mass to a GM-a 250 powerplant, giving it a blinding 12/18 turn of speed (that’s six gees of sustained power and nine in bursts, so physical fitness and the right body-type is likely a must for F-10 drivers :D); this means that it can out-run and out-turn even the 11/17 SYD-Z
Seydlitz, and with four tons of fuel to the
Seydlitz’ three, it’s longer-legged as well. The price of all that speed, however, is ruthless limits on internal volume available for weapons and armour, neither of which is all that impressive: despite the fluff, the nose-mounted Starflash small laser and single mediums in each wing are only ‘fair’ by the standards of its fellow interceptors, and the three tons of armour (distributed 13/11/13) are only enough to withstand the lightest of return fire; anything that can bring more than a couple of medium lasers to bear on the F-10
Cheetah (which is just about everything in the skies) has the potential to cripple or kill it in a single pass. One might note, however, that the
Cheetah does make a decent fast bomber, lofting five tons of ordnance at a still-impressive 11/17 (which is as fast as a clean
Seydlitz and gets you two hexes per turn on the Strategic scale, AFAIK - which sounds like a fair clip to me. ;)) Strafing, air-to-ground-strike and anti-shipping capability are negligible, as one might expect of a craft so small, but if nothing else they’re good for getting in really, really fast and drawing the triple-A’s fire to give other units a clearer path. ::)
Fighting with a
Cheetah unit on your side is a Tale of Slashing Attacks. As they lack a Big Fething Gun to (counter)punch above their weight like the
Seydlitz does, F-10s cannot afford to face heavy firepower head-to-head; instead, you send in the
Stingrays to grab the other guy by the nose, then kick him in the ass (or other exposed portions of anatomy) with
Cheetahs in one-pass-haul-ass strikes that exploit blind sides and weak spots in their formations; once you hit, you don’t turn with the other guy - you extend and set up for another such opportunity (read: look for another victim ;D). Even the pathetically-armoured
Thrush can hand you your lunch in a turning fight, so don’t let ’em get started. As always,
mantras, mantras, mantras. ;D
Lyran players wanting to deal with
Cheetahs are in for an ‘interesting’ time of it - in the Chinese sense. ;D Without a prayer of keeping up with these little speed-demons, even with their kickass
Seydlitz, they
do possess shedloads of firepower and a broad engagement-range advantage, both of which they should exploit it shamelessly.
Cheetahs are very brittle, and a dose from a
Lucifer’s LRM-20 or a
Stingray’s PPC will smash one up for fair. Capellans actually
can match the F-10’s agility with their own TR-7
Thrush, but that’s a chancey kind of thing to try: while possessed of moderately more punch, the
Thrush is even more delicate than its intended victim. The preference would be to stand back and let the other guy run onto/across your guns, especially if you have
Transgressors or
Thunderbirds at your disposal.
As far as variants go, the F-11-R is the dedicated recon version spoken of in the fluff; it sheds both medium lasers, the
Cheetah’s only significant weapons, and uses the space for extra fuel, allowing for high-speed dashes across unfriendly territory to take a look-see. Useful mainly in RP-style situations or for drawing off enemy interceptors to open a gap for other, more effective spaceframes, this is not a type to be used in combat. At all.
Used as a point-defence interceptor at critical ground installations and as a last-ditch defence for some Leaguer DropShips, the F-12-S sheds both MLs and a ton of fuel to install an SRM-4 with twenty-five salvoes. While this may have been a fine crit-seeking move under AT1, in the modern iteration of the game it’s a little dubious for an individual bird; if entire squadrons use shark-pack tactics on a single target, though, it could do a number on it. :o
[VARIANT PROPOSAL(S) REDACTED] All proposed fan-variants - including my own - belong in the corresponding "FotW Workshop" thread: http://www.classicbattletech.com/forums/index.php/topic,2199.0.html 3049 AND BEYOND The F-11-RR is the first of two foundtech versions, employing an XL engine to free almost a quarter of the ship’s all-up mass... and in this case, ploughing it all into fuel. Ten tons of fuel. No extra armour; no increase in firepower beyond that of the standard F-10; no DHS (not that they’re needed); no extra speed or gadgets. As a pure first-shell stop-’em-’til-help-arrives interceptor, or as a dash-and-flash recon platform, this one’s pretty good; despite its continued frailty and lack of significant weaponry, the F-11-RR’s operating range (and concommitant interception radius) certainly take a great deal of beating. This is the only fighter in existence whose internal-load fuel lets it match the legs of the
Slayer! (Though what it’s supposed to do if/when it actually
catches a
Slayer is a different story - one is put in mind of a rat chasing down a panther, or a
Fire Moth A getting in the face of an
Atlas. :o) Acceptable, but not really a stand-out.
Our final contestant is the F-14-S, which is
almost a living slander on that hallowed designation. ::) A foundtech remodelling of the F-12-S, this one also has the XL engine and expanded fuel tanks (a total of six tons, in this case), and
Hallelujah, it has more armour! Five-point-five tons of the stuff, 26/19/24 - not as tough as a
Sparrowhawk, but nearly twice as survivable as it was (at least in terms of sheer, accumulating punishment). The armament, though? Well, given all their new technology, the FWL went ahead and armed this shiny new fighter with... a pair of nose-mounted SSRM-2s and a ton of ammo. Gee - colour me whelmed. :( Energy weapons are a light fighter’s weapon of preference for a
reason, and the F-14-S does nothing to confound that received wisdom. This was a shakey sort of ‘upgrade’ in 3050; in 3067, when a body of experience with foundtech has been built up, it’s positively risible. ::)
[VARIANT PROPOSAL(S) REDACTED] All proposed fan-variants - including my own - belong in the corresponding "FotW Workshop" thread: http://www.classicbattletech.com/forums/index.php/topic,2199.0.html Be advised: the attached .txt transcripts of previous runs of this thread contain numerous reader-proposals for variants. I’ll try to change those out for ’sanitised’ versions of those threads when I can, but I can’t promise it’ll be soon - that’s a lot of ground to cover. ;)
